Rambling On

Last night, DH and I talked about the baby’s birth in detail for the first time. He’s chosen not to think about it too much, whereas I think about it every day. I’ve been doing some reading. The Dr. Google kind. I know, I know…Hear me out

I’m not totally freaking out just yet, which is why I haven’t written about this before… but it looks like I’m at a much higher risk for a recurrence of placenta previa and placenta accreta. I also had something called villitis. The accreta means if we decide to try for another I will almost certainly require a caesarean-hysterectomy. The villitis puts me at higher risk of stillbirth. As I understand it, the combination puts me at higher risk of dying.

I’m going to order my medical records to make sure I haven’t misunderstood the diagnoses; and I am going to make an appointment to talk to my OB to discuss just how much of a risk these things are. I’m not freaking out just yet, but I am preparing myself for the possibility that we won’t have a second child.

The main memory I have of my daughter’s birth is the voice inside me that told me I was going to be okay. Am I going to die? I silently asked over and over. No, not today, came the answer again and again. I felt strong in my weakened body. That is, physically, I was weak, but my spirit (if you want to call it that) was strong. Paradoxically, I fought to stay calm. My loss and infertility journeys have trained me well.

The day my daughter was born was the closest I’ve ever come to dying. It wasn’t super close — my kidneys were working fine, as judged by my urine output — but it was close enough for me that I realise I’m still processing that trauma.

Do I really want to go through all of that again? Do I sacrifice my uterus for a second baby? If it’s that simple, I guess so. But would I risk my life — potentially leaving my husband a young widower and my daughter a motherless child — for a sibling? I don’t think I can. Could you?

One of the over-arching moments during the caesarean was right before I told the anaesthesiologist that the spinal block was wearing off. Are you sure, Lauren? Are you really, really sure? Because if you say the spinal is wearing off, you will be given a general anaesthetic and you will likely wake up having had an emergency hysterectomy. And I was sure, because I took a deep breath and timidly told Dr. A what I thought was happening. I decided I was sure because that voice inside me told me everything is negotiable, except death. I want to be this beautiful baby’s mama. I want to raise her with my beautiful DH. She is enough. V is enough.

I don’t relish the thought of a hysterectomy. I’m worried that it would impact my physical comfort — wouldn’t the space where the uterus was be taken up by sagging intestines? My sexuality — wouldn’t that be affected somehow? But if I came through the other side — wombless but with a second baby — there is no way I would ever resent that baby or our decision if I even love him half as much as I love sweet V. She is enough.

I am no longer stranded on IF Island, but the seas ahead look a little stormy…

♥

Today I left my comfort zone. I went to a Tribe de Mama gathering. You don’t have to be a mother, or even pregnant, to participate, only that you identify as female. I was invited by a fellow loss mama and I took V with me. There, I was smudged with sage, sat in a circle facing an altar, tried to meditate with a baby on my lap, sang a Native American song, and shared stories of joy and sorrow. I completely felt like a fish out of water, but I threw myself in with gusto. In a group of 25 women, I was not the only loss mama, but until the 25th woman spoke, I was the only person who shared that she suffers from infertility.

My words tumbled out of me, as they are in this clumsy post. I shared that I had a miscarriage, a genetic disorder, that this sweet baby — who was sleeping sprawled across my lap at the time — came to us via egg donation, that even after a semi-high-risk pregnancy I nearly almost died during her birth… but that I am a breastfeeding champion. That I vascillate between feeling traumatised by the birth and its legacy for a second child, and feeling invincible. Much of the time, I do feel like I can do anything. Even adjust my expectations yet again as to what I thought my family would be (from two and an ‘oops’, to non-genetic) to saying goodbye to my womb and a sibling.

If that’s the case, there will be grief. But I’m not afraid. I know how to embrace it. I know what my triggers will be — they’ve already started creeping in again — but I am better equipped to learn how to love them. My greatest fear is that V will be taken from me in some way. Anything but that. I can handle anything but that.

Have I mentioned how lucky I am to have this girl? She is so sweet-natured. She smiles all the time, at everyone. She is unbelievably mellow — there is no way she could have come from my family, ha! She was the only baby who was happy to sit in the circle of women for hours today, because she was being held (which she loves) and was allowed to stand (holding my thumbs) and was surrounded by people talking and singing (her favourite entertainment).

Today, I realized that we really are all connected through our challenges and our grief, our triumphs and our joy. And you know what? Though I may have been out of my comfort zone, I loved it. Every single woman there was brave, vulnerable, and beautiful, and it was awesome (in the original sense) to bear witness to that. I know that as long as I have this community of incredible women whose stories I have come to know intimately, I’ll be okay. And for as long as I have sweet V and DH I don’t have to fear the depths — because who knows what heights I’ll reach.